


Hello, My Old Heart

by wendywanderlust



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alpha Will, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe, Childhood Friends, Class Differences, Courting Rituals, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Long Lost Friends, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mutual Pining, Omega Mike Wheeler, Omega Verse, Oppressed Omegas, a tiny bit dark but not much, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:13:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26080048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendywanderlust/pseuds/wendywanderlust
Summary: When he was twelve years old, Mike presented as an Omega. Like all Omegas, he was whisked away from his friends, his school, and his old life, and has spent every day since under constant supervision. Everyone knows that Omegas are vulnerable and delicate; it's too dangerous to keep them around Alphas.Will lost his best friend in the whole world six years ago. Now, as he finishes high school, he's feeling the effects of loneliness. But he can't be thinking about finding a mate right now, he has far too much going on in his life.Mike knows that society's attitudes towards Omegas are utter bullshit - and he also knows that any Alpha that comes near him is a threat. Will knows that society is all wrong about dynamics and how unequal their treatment is, and he's determined never to be like his abusive Alpha father.Both of them are sure that they're never going to fall for an Alpha or an Omega, respectively. That is, until they come face-to-face for the first time in six years. They're reunited, but everyone knows that any Alpha who "just wants to be friends" with an Omega is up to no good. And despite all their promises to themselves, they're both falling for their childhood crush all over again.
Relationships: Dustin Henderson & Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Will Byers & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	1. Long Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Literally I work in the morning and I didn't even proof-read parts of this, but the idea came to me in a flash and I had to make it happen, so... enjoy.  
> Oh yeah, title from that one Oh Hellos song.

The smell of bow rosin and polished wood fills the practice room. Sound-absorbing squares of foam cover the walls. A glossy black piano leans up against the far wall, but Mike isn’t using it; instead, he perches at the edge of his seat with his back straight, hugging a cello between his knees. The rectangular window near the ceiling is too high to see out into the school courtyard; all he can see of the outside world is the fresh green of sunlit leaves and blue sky beyond. It’s cracked open. Early spring, with its mercurial weather, always leaves the school building either too cold or much, much too hot. Today it’s too hot, and Mike relishes the occasional ribbon of breeze that touches his hot face and sweaty hands as he runs through scales and arpeggios.

This is the only place, save for his house, where Mike can be alone.

At all other times he is supervised. Can’t have Omegas running around on their lonesome, after all. They’re vulnerable. They’re delicate. They might get hurt.

If the acerbic thought wasn’t so old and well-worn, Mike might snort. As it is, he just pauses to crack his knuckles and eases into a simplified arrangement of the Force theme from _Star Wars._ He’s supposed to be practicing Bach’s Suite No. 1 in G Major today. Chosen by his mother, of course, in anticipation of his upcoming big performance at his cousin’s wedding this summer. 

The resonance of the chords vibrate in the strings under his calloused fingertips and buzz in the hollow wooden body of the instrument like something living and breathing. Like a heartbeat. The resistance of the rosined bow on the strings is as familiar as the sight of his own hands. The tip of the bow dips, flicks and dances in his peripheral vision as the cello sings in its sonorous voice. So very much like a human.

Mike doesn’t dislike Bach. And he doesn’t hate Suite No. 1. The melody is beautiful, and classic, and stuffy, and overused. And he would rather be playing _Star Wars._ But he doesn’t hate the song itself.

He hates that he has to play it - that he _has_ to, that it’s a requirement, an expectation, a duty.

Omegas entertain.

With that thought bitter on the back of his tongue, Mike slows to a halt and sighs, stretching his neck, before leaning into the first notes of Suite No. 1. He’s stiff, resentful, and the instrument resents it too. But then he falls into muscle memory and the melody smooths out into something presentable. Maybe even halfway impressive.

Hell, it ought to be impressive. He’s pretty good at this instrument by now - or at least he would hope so. He’s been practicing every day of his life, birthdays and Christmases included, for just over six years now. 

Omegas are encouraged and expected to be entertainers, and this is no exception in the Wheeler household. Years ago, before repeated Carpal Tunnel seized hold of his right wrist, Mike’s father used to play the trumpet. He wasn’t very good at it, but an instrument is an instrument, and you have to have _some_ sort of skill if you’re an Omega. Playing an instrument, or singing, or dancing, or acting, or even stand-up comedy. Some party trick you can whip out at social events or during quiet evenings at home when the Alphas of the household are bored.

Mike practices the cello at least once every day - often while Nancy practices piano beside him. But while his big sister, tall and slender and self-assured and undeniable Alpha, had a choice about learning piano, Mike practically had to choose an instrument at knife point. Except it wasn’t a knife, it was his mother’s tight grip on his upper arm, excitedly steering him towards various delicate, piping instruments in the local music store the week after he presented. His new instrument, this new drain on his time, these shackles, was his birthday gift. _Congratulations - your freedom is gone and your life is over!_

It had all happened so fast. One day life was going on as it always had. He was eating lunch with his friends, the Party, in the cafeteria. Lucas, Dustin. Will. They were laughing and teasing each other and Dustin threw a slice of ham at the window and it stuck, and somehow it was the funniest thing any of them had ever seen. Mike’s stomach had been hurting that day - or at least, he thought it was his stomach at the time - and he didn’t eat much. Will noticed. Mike said he was fine, it was nothing. Will shrugged, casting him an unconvinced glance as Mike winced again, and they went on talking about their most recent campaign.

_It was a seven._

_Huh?_

_The roll. It was a seven. The Demogorgon. It got me._

The bell rang, and Will stuffed the last of his fries into his mouth and leapt up. He had a test next period, and wanted to get to class early enough to do some last minute studying. Will always was one to over-study. 

_Whelp, see you tomorrow!_

It was the last thing they ever said to each other. Because Will left school early that day for a dentist appointment, so Mike biked home alone, and that night he was jolted into the worst fever and worst stomachache he could ever remember having. It felt like there was an ax buried in his belly, _very_ slowly ripping him open, stitch by stitch. The fever made him want to vomit. The walls wavered and the bed bucked beneath him. He remembers being curled up in a ball under the sheets, rocking back and forth in a futile attempt to dull the pain, weeping for somebody to please just hold him, please, anybody. When you’re twelve, heats don’t come with the awful gnaw of sexual hunger that they do in later years. But it’s hell to be alone. In the dark. Not knowing what’s happening to you, crying into your pillow from the pain, thinking that for sure you’re about to die, you’re dying, you’re dying and no one is even going to see it or say goodbye because no one is coming and -

In the end, it was Nancy that heard his cries and nearly broke down his door in her desperation to get to him. It took her a few minutes to realize what was happening. She was crying too by the time their mother burst into the room, hair and eyes wild.

_What’s wrong with him?_ Nancy demanded, gulping back sobs. _What’s wrong with him, Mom?_

She was sixteen, at the time, and had never seen or smelled a heat in her life. But Karen Wheeler took one whiff of the room and shook her head, grim, and started gathering supplies.

The next four days were unrelenting. Painkillers helped a little bit, as did the ice baths that his mother ran for him, and Nancy squeezing him to her and rocking him in a way that he hadn’t allowed her to do since he was a small pup.

But at last, it was over. Or so he thought. Because once he had survived his first heat - and, he learned afterwards, not everyone does - life did not return to normal. He didn’t go back to school with his friends. He wasn’t allowed to host D&D nights anymore. He couldn’t do _anything_ anymore, or so it seemed. Instead, he was hastily switched into the school building on the other end of the campus - the Omega building. Different building, different teachers, different classes, different classmates, different dress code. Chaperoned everywhere. Always under lock and key, always observed. Apparently it was supposed to make him feel safe, but it always just made him feel trapped. He didn’t want to be safe from the dangers of the world and from the leering Alphas with bared teeth and reaching hands, he wanted his life back. He wanted his friends back.

And then all at once it was his birthday, which he had scarcely remembered, and his mother told him she had a surprise for him and made him close his eyes until they were inside the music store.

_Birthday boy’s choice,_ she had said, clapping her hands.

Mike remembered reading, somewhere, that the cello was the instrument that produced a sound closest to the human voice. And after recently and abruptly being torn from his friends - especially his _best_ friend in the whole world, who he didn’t know if he’d ever see again - he really needed a friend. An empathetic human presence. And at that moment, the closest thing he had was the elegant, sturdy string instrument, as tall as him, that reclined in its stand in the corner of the store.

So cello it was.

But that was a long time ago. It’s all a distant memory, at this point. He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about it now. He hasn’t thought of his childhood best friend in months. It was another life - another world, almost. The Party is something Mike barely thinks about anymore.

Dustin, obviously, is the exception. Mike rolls his eyes with a small grin, waterfalling his way through a vibrato-heavy sequence. While Will and Lucas got to stay in normal school, where Alphas and Betas remain until college, Dustin joined Mike in the Omega building not six months after he got his cello. They quickly grew closer than they ever had been in previous years; after all, they were now each other’s only remaining friend from their old life.

Six years. That’s how long it’s been. But it won’t be for much longer; this is senior year. Everyone graduates in May, and then Mike is done. Gone. Off to college faster than you can say _student debt._ Not like his family couldn’t afford to send him, because they can, it’s just that his parents have been annoyingly hesitant about funding his higher education. Omegas can go to college, sure. Nobody said they can’t. But wouldn’t you rather take a couple years and maybe settle down first? Going to college alone can be so dangerous. And what if you change your mind? What if it’s too hard and you drop out? What if you go for two years and then an Alpha meets you and you drop out to get married? You’ll be wasting the money. And those all-Omega schools are so expensive, but the mixed dynamic colleges are so questionable and dangerous, especially after dark... Are you _sure_ you wouldn’t rather just wait a few years?

_Very,_ Mike answers the echo of his parents’ voices in his head, and plays louder to drown them out.

* * *

Will leans against the trunk of the tree, eyes closed, feeling the sunlight on his face. He was lucky today. He got here early enough to listen to most of a song.

He tries to pass this window on most days. Sometimes his timing is off and he misses it, but every day come sun, rain, or shine, somebody is inside that practice room. He doesn’t know who it is, but some industrious cellist is in there early every morning, practicing. They must really love their instrument, to be that dedicated. The way that Will loves art. Usually he just has time to slow down on his way past the high, narrow window, sipping at his thermos, checking his watch to see if he’ll be late for first period. But today he had an unusually punctual morning, and he even has time to sit down for a few minutes and sketch while he waits. The cellist was playing a theme from _Star Wars_ when he arrived, gorgeous and haunting and two-toned, multiple strings humming at once. It made Will smile. Now, as he sketches an X-Wing, they’ve moved on to something more serious. Some familiar classical piece that reminds Will of cathedral ceilings and powdered wigs. He couldn’t name it if his life depended on it, but he can hum along to the melody as he sits in the grass.

An intruding thought makes his forehead tense with a small frown. He’s supposed to be researching colleges today.

Everyone expects him to already know exactly what he wants out of life and what career he wants. Ugh, career. It may as well be a dirty word. He’s eighteen, for shit’s sake, and he doesn’t know if his family is going to be able to afford the mortgage next month after his mom’s emergency room bill, let alone thousands of dollars for college. His frown deepens. That was scary. Joyce is the strongest person Will has ever known in his life. She’s the reason he has never completely believed the bullshit that society spreads about Omegas. She’s an Omega, and never once has he thought of her as weak, or incapable, or delicate, or needing protection. But seeing her paper-white and trembling in the ER, struggling to breathe and panicking while Alpha doctors crowded around her... 

It was the first and only time that Will has ever been kicked out of an establishment for being aggressive. Almost. They didn’t actually kick him out, they just said they’d have to if he growled at a doctor like that again.

Anyway, even if he could afford college, he wouldn’t know what to do there. He has no interest in the subjects offered by nearby cheap community colleges for Alphas. Business, Computer Science, Engineering, Political Science, Premed. All perfectly fine and interesting degrees for _someone,_ he’s sure. But not him. He has absolutely no interest in business or politics, and while engineering and computer science are cool, they’re not what he’s drawn to. And forget about being a doctor. He’ll barely be able to pay off two years of trade school debt, much less six years in med school. And he can’t stomach the sight of people’s insides. 

Much to the grumbling dismay of his father, he thinks he’ll take a gap year first before trying to make a decision. Maybe he’ll work on his portfolio. Maybe he can find some way to escape this town and live his own life before he’s thrust back into the unrelenting slog of academia. Maybe he’ll even meet somebody. 

But before any of that, he has to graduate.

“Hey, weirdo.”

Will smiles without opening his eyes. “Hey, Max.”

She plops down beside him, jostling him - but not so much as to mess up his sketch. He opens his eyes and keeps working on it. “Skipping first?”

“Nah.”

“You’re on the wrong side of campus, then.”

“Had some extra time today,” he says, evading the full truth by a finger’s breadth.

Anyway, he’s not on the wrong side of campus. Technically they’re smack-dab in the _middle_ of campus. The music hall straddles the line between the majority of the school buildings and the small handful of modular buildings that make up the Omega side of the grounds. In fact, the chain link fence separating the two sides runs right through the building. The only way to get through to the other side would be to either scale the fence, go all the way around through the front gates, or squeeze yourself through one of the tiny practice room windows.

It’s there to protect people like the cellist from people like Will and Max.

Purportedly.

Will pauses. Max is smirking at him. Why is she smirking at him?

“What?” he says, and she tosses her deep red hair back, lips zipped. _“What?”_

“You’re gonna hop the fence, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“Why would I -?”

“You’ve got some little sweetheart over there and I know it. Don’t make that face at me, I see you out here every day. Who are you waiting for?”

He presses his lips into a thin line and tries to concentrate on drawing, ignoring her. Red hair swings into his field of vision as she scoots closer, her voice softening from nettling to coaxing.

“Hey. Will. I’m sorry, okay? Don’t be like that. It’s just, you can talk to me.”

He can. She’s one of the few people Will can really talk to. Max moved into town about a year after two of Will’s best friends moved across that fence. He and Max presented as Alphas around the same time. Of course, Will still had Lucas, but he was a Beta. He couldn’t relate to some of Will’s woes quite as well as the newly-transplanted Californian girl could.

Ironically, Lucas and Max started dating not a year later.

Most of Will’s classmates are Betas. For every Alpha in a classroom, there are about two Betas. It’s probably for the best. The Betas, generally level-headed, practical, and easygoing, help to balance out the firecracker personalities that are encouraged in Alphas. If Omegas shared the same classes, they’d be about equal with the amount of Alphas.

But Omegas, of course, aren’t in the same classes. Not even the same school building. It’s considered too dangerous. How could teenagers possibly be expected to successfully navigate all the complexities of dynamics in everyday life? And God forbid an Omega ever went into preheat or even heat on school grounds. How would the Alphas be expected to control themselves then? It would be like putting a juicy steak in front of a dog and expecting it not to chow down. That’s what everyone says.

Will once put that saying to the test. He has a white dog named Chester, and while Chester is getting old, he’s a sight to behold when he goes after food. He is also better trained now than when he and Will were both pups. He’s a well-mannered old dog. So when Will bought a steak at the meat counter one day, brought it home, unwrapped it and put it on the kitchen floor, Chester wagged his tail and licked his chops hopefully. _No,_ Will said, but made no move to restrain the dog. _Not for Chester._ Chester took a hesitant step. _No,_ Will said again, more firmly. And his dog heaved a deep, long-suffering sigh, and lay down, and didn’t touch the steak.

So, there it was. Any Alpha who takes advantage of somebody and pleads innocence through loss of control is full of shit. A literal animal had better manners, respect, and self-control than those Alphas claim to have.

_It’s no wonder so many Omegas fear or even hate us,_ Will thinks, a little glum. _We’re worse than beasts._

“I’m not seeing anyone,” he mutters at last.

He can tell she believes him because she sounds disappointed when she sits back with a sigh. 

Max has been trying to get Will “out there.” She thinks it’s been too long since he dated anybody - he was about thirteen, and it was a pleasant but highly incompatible Beta girl that invited him to a school dance. And he’s been on a few isolated dates a few times since then - nothing that ever went anywhere. Twice with other Betas, and once with another Alpha - mostly so they could feel rebellious. He was a nice guy, and funny, but they didn’t have much in common beyond their shared rebellious streak and soon parted ways. He was a good kisser though.

Will could go for some kisses just about now. It’s been a bad week.

To the great dismay of some of his friends and especially of his father, Will has never dated an Omega.

He will not be like his father.

He will not be like all those beasts in the school building that talk about mating like it’s either dessert or violence. Something to be taken, consumed, forced. It makes him sick.

Once upon a time, Will used to daydream about life with a certain Omega. But that was a long time ago.

As he and Max heave themselves up from the grass and start walking back towards the better-funded half of campus, the last chords of the classical song follow them up the hill.

* * *

School on this side of the fence, Mike thinks, should be re-named _Stay-at-Home Spouse Training._ It would be a more accurate descriptor.

Oh, they have math and science and English and history classes, too. But while the other school building has its students in one Home Economics class per year, if that, Omegas have two a day. No two are named the same thing, of course, but they’re all essentially the same: How to Be a Good Omega.

There’s Child Development, AKA How To Get Knocked Up and Be a Stay-at-Home Parent. There’s Homemaking, which lumps together interior design, gardening, budgeting, cooking, caring for your Alpha’s needs. (Barf.) Then there are the more palatable classes. Art, music, theater, dance. Gym can be heaven or hell depending on the day - mostly hell, in Mike’s case. Alphas get gym courses like weight training, football, basketball, and wrestling. Omegas’ gym classes feature daily yoga and/or pilates, jogging, swimming, dance. They’re restricted to “low-impact” sports, to protect their more delicate bodies. Competitive swimming, figure skating, softball. Exercise designed to slim them down and make them flexible, not to bulk them up and make them formidable.

Right now, Mike is sitting in Homemaking, sweating in his too-long pant legs and sleeves. It’s sweltering, especially inside the modular buildings that were supposed to be temporary but somehow still haven’t been replaced after nearly a decade. Betas and Alphas are wearing shorts and tank tops today, but Omega dress code prohibits anything that shows that much skin.

_Think outside the box,_ his textbook earnestly advises him. _Having dinner prepared and tidying up the house is a great start, but both your and your Alpha’s everyday lives will suffer from too much mundanity. Brainstorm some ways you can care for your Alpha’s needs beyond just dinner, then check the list on page 187 for more ideas._

_-Encourage pups to be calm and cheerful when your Alpha arrives home._

_-Accept any gifts they bring you graciously and enthusiastically._

_-Give them a massage._

_-Invite them into your nest. Alphas benefit from the feeling of comfort and safety too._

_-Prepare a foot bath for them if they’ve been on their feet all day._

_-Encourage your Alpha to talk about their day and how they felt during their day. Alphas are often so busy thinking about the bigger picture that they forget to take the time to process their own worries or little joys._

_-Complete household chores before they arrive home so they don’t feel obligated to spend their precious time at home washing the dishes or sorting mail._

_-If your Alpha is in the right mood, play with them! Alphas often build up too much pent-up energy, and without an outlet it can cause them stress. Lighten the mood by initiating a play fight._

_-In the mornings, start their car before it’s time for them to leave so that it can warm up or cool down._

_-Play an instrument or sing to them to lift their spirits after a hard day._

Mike chews on a thumbnail, skimming through the rest of the reading just so he can be done. Sure, it all sounds nice. Nice things to do for your partner. How sweet. But the sugary coating hides how unbalanced it all is. Have their pups, rub their feet, be at their beck and call. Be a glorified pet that can also clean the house.

No thanks. He decided long ago. If his choices are to either die alone or live forever in a toxic relationship, he’ll die alone.

Technically he could also date a Beta. Or even another Omega. But same-dynamic relationships can be difficult - not impossible, but difficult. And Betas tend to turn up their noses at the two more temperamental dynamics. As a rule, they consider Alphas and Omegas immature, even unstable. Fun for short-term dating, maybe, but Betas rarely settle with anyone except other Betas.

Walking out of the school gate at the end of the day, hauling his cello on his back - he has never understood how something so hollow can be so heavy - Mike hears a hoarse yell from somewhere behind him.

“Hey, cutie, why don’t you wrap your legs around me instead of that thing?”

Somebody tugs on the instrument case and Mike whips around, lips pulled back in preparation to hiss, but whoever it was already passed by, laughing. A couple Betas catch sight of his expression and _ooh_ gleefully, chuckling. _Silly, feisty little Omega._

Mike swallows the hiss and turns around, glowering. 

Never. Never, ever. 

* * *

“Hey, cutie, why don’t you wrap your legs around me instead of that thing?”

Will doesn’t see who Troy is yelling at, but he’d be willing to bet money that they were an Omega. 

Troy is an asshole. He has been since sixth grade, and Will doesn’t suspect he’ll ever recover from that particular malady.

He rolls his eyes, mumbling, “‘Scuse me,” as he shoulders his way past someone who smells amazing and has their head down behind a large instrument case. 

It’s assholes like Troy that make this whole thing so difficult.

Because Will would love to date somebody. He would. He’s starting to understand why so many Alphas and Omegas tend to get together right after high school, while Betas don’t tend to start bonding until after college. Being lonely is hard. Especially living in a body that was evolved to operate as one of two halves. His chemistry wasn’t meant to keep on ticking, year after year, all on its own. He’s supposed to have somebody to balance out and complete his body’s chemical cycle. It’s biology, like circadian rhythms or positive and negative ions affecting how you feel. Betas have everything they need in their own brain and body already. He envies them.

But, he tells himself to buck up. He can’t be thinking about finding a mate right now. He couldn’t possibly. He has too many other things going on in his life. Graduation, college applications, his mother’s health starting to fail after so many years of breathing smoke. And they’re still getting used to the new house. He’s still getting used to having a sister, and El is getting used to having and Alpha for a brother. He’s busy. This isn’t the time to be wasting brainpower on pining for old and irrelevant daydreams. 

And, honestly, fuck that body-chemistry bullshit. He’s not going to die if he doesn’t use some poor Omega as his own personal bio-chemical regulator, and he’s pretty sure they make pills for that nowadays if he gets too desperate. He doesn’t even want an Omega. The social structures are just too crooked. It could never work. And he never wants to be like Lonnie.

Never, ever.


	2. Reunion

Mike’s mother perked up this morning when she heard he would be coming home later than usual. She deflated a little when he explained that he was only going over to a friend’s house to study, and that the friend was an Omega.

“I thought maybe you were planning on going to that mixer,” she had said, eyeing him hopefully, as if he might change his mind. “It’s this afternoon and evening. Open house. You could show up anytime. Maybe wear that new tie, tidy up your hair a little -”

“Mom.”

“Oh, Mike, would it be that bad? Nobody’s asking you to commit to anything. And there are chaperones all over those things to keep an eye out. It’s not like anything bad could happen.”

He snorted.

“Mike,” she scolded, all at once sharp, and his head ducked instinctively over his cereal. “Don’t be like that. Just go, why don’t you? It’s one evening, and you can leave whenever you like.”

“You know I don’t like parties,” Mike said, but meekly - she was still annoyed, and his mother could be a force of nature if she ever got tipped over the edge from annoyed to angry.

She switched tacks, coming to sit at the kitchen table across from him, hands wrapped around her coffee. “What if you meet somebody?” she suggested, lightly, but with a keen glint in her eye. 

She watched for a reaction. Mike shrugged. 

“You know, you’re almost done with high school.”

“Yup.”

“You wanna go to college alone?”

“Yup.” Her mouth twisted and he sighed. “Sorry.”

For a few moments, nothing happened. He finished off the dregs of his cereal, chasing soggy flakes with his spoon, and she sipped her coffee. The fragrant scent curled around the kitchen table. Then Mike’s mother spoke up again. Quiet, coaxing.

“Being single is hard, Mike. For Omegas _and_ for Alphas. We weren’t built to be healthy by ourselves. Humans are pack animals. We need each other.”

“Betas do fine.”

“You’re not a Beta.”

“There are supplements,” he muttered, and she replied without missing a beat.

“Nobody has any idea what the side effects of those are long-term. They haven’t been on the market long enough to know what they might be doing to you.”

“God, they’re just like vitamins -” he tried to say, but she was on a roll, talking over him.

“I know you think I’m just Mom-ing you and trying to boss you around, but I really am trying to help you here. Did you ever think that maybe you’re having a rough time because that brain of yours...” She stretched one hand over the table, half-standing to reach his head, and ruffled his hair. “... is missing half the chemicals it needs to be healthy? Maybe if you settled down with somebody -”

“It is not _half,_ it’s like ten percent or something -”

“- you’d feel better, and then you could go to college like you want -”

“- and I’m not gonna die without somebody holding my goddamn hand -”

“- with someone who could protect you there.”

“Oh, enough, enough, enough! I’m not a pup, I don’t need to be coddled and hidden away from the big mean world.” He fluttered his fingers to emphasize the lilt of sarcasm in his voice, and his mother glared at him.

“It is a mean world,” she said simply. “Do you know the kinds of things I see on the news every night?” She put down her mug to rub her eyes, suddenly seeming very old and tired, and Mike’s irritation lapsed with a pang of guilt. Especially when she emerged from her hands to say, “I just want you to be okay, sweetheart. That’s all.” 

He got up to rinse his bowl so he wouldn’t have to look her in the face anymore. “I am okay, Mom.”

“You’ll be a lot more -” She paused minutely, as if searching for a word. “- _stable_ once you find a good mate, I promise you. You’ll feel better, you’ll sleep better -”

“I am stable.”

She fixed him with an unimpressed and unconvinced look, continuing. “You’ll have more energy, you’ll be less moody, heats will be a lot more manageable -”

“Mom!”

“What? I know you tend to struggle with them. You’re like your grandmother, she used to get the most horrendous cramps.”

“Aah, stop, stop it,” he groaned, batting a hand at her, embarrassed. “ _God,_ I do not need to talk about -”

“Will you just go to the mixer?”

Relieved to be off the topic of heats, he jumped on his argument. “I told you, I have to study. We have a test tomorrow.”

“Well, go after, then. Study and then go. I could even come chaperone if you’d feel bett-”

“No,” he said, a bit too sharply. 

The only thing worse than having to go to some pompous, insipid cocktail party and getting alternately leered at and hit on by Alphas reeking of _pay-attention-to-me_ pheromones... is having to do it with his mother hovering in the wings, watching his every move, trying to silently goad him towards potential suitors. 

“That’s okay,” he said, “I’ll just take the bus.”

She beamed at him.

* * *

“So now I have that to look forward to.”

El frowns sympathetically. “Just don’t go?” she suggests, and Mike shakes his head with a sigh.

“She’d know. She knows everyone, she’ll be calling around tonight to talk to all the other parents and find out everything that happened there. If I don’t go she’ll be on my back by tomorrow morning. Anyway, if I go she might leave me be for a couple months.”

They’re walking along the sidewalk into El’s neighborhood. The weather is cool and fresh with minuscule points of moisture drifting down from the sky, too fine and light to be rain, too heavy to be mist. Springtime here is always an unpredictable pendulum between warm, sunny days and temporary relapses to winter. The hoods of their jackets are pulled up and Mike’s fingers are stiff with chill. That’s another thing that sucks about his life, another thing to be pissed off about today: Omegas’ body temperatures tend to run lower and drop more easily than anyone else’s. While Betas can ride easy through burning and freezing climates, with only a few minor wardrobe changes, Omegas are constantly cold, and Alphas run hot. They’re always blasting the air conditioning, always sluggish and grumpy in the height of summer, retreating to underground dens to cool down. Meanwhile, Omegas curl up in front of portable heaters in the winter, always wrapped in blankets and cuddling together in piles for warmth.

El gives a commiserating grunt, and Mike shrugs. She looks like she wants to offer to go with him, but he knows why she won’t.

El moved to town about a year ago, but she and Mike didn’t share many classes until this semester. She’s the adoptive daughter of the police chief. She’s quiet, headstrong, and she was abused by an Alpha as a kid. It made Mike choke on his sandwich the first time she said that, so casually, as if it wasn’t heartbreaking. She retains an unusually strong wariness of Alphas to this day - although, she says, her adoptive brother-in-law is helping with that. 

Apparently. 

Mike can’t help but be suspicious. Family members’ scents are chemically incapable of smelling enticing to each other, but what about adoptive family? This brother of hers is an Alpha, after all. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, as El assures Mike, but still... Mike worries.

Of course, he’s not going to be home this afternoon. El wouldn’t have invited Mike over if any Alphas were going to be in the house.

In fact it looks like nobody else is home at all. They step through the garage door, El yelling around to different family members, but to no response.

“Sweet,” she says, grinning. “We can turn it up as loud as we want. _And_ we get the living room.”

Mike kicks off his shoes, following El’s example, and he’s barely two steps into the house before something at the back of his neck starts prickling. It’s a bizarre and impossible sense of deja vu. That smell - he knows it. Or does he? It’s hauntingly familiar, dancing _just_ on the edge of memory, and yet he senses that it’s not quite the same as it once was... whatever _it_ is. And it’s lost in a muddle of other, unfamiliar scents. He finds that he has trouble picking it out again, after that initial jolt of near-memory; it blends in with El’s spun-sugar-and-clove scent, and the anxiety-inducing traces of an unfamiliar Alpha, and... more familiar scents? 

Mike shakes his head, hard. As El leads him through the kitchen and towards the living room, chirping away, none the wiser, he only falls deeper into confusion. He knows this decor, he knows this furniture. He _swears_ he does. Just... not all of it. Some of it is unfamiliar, but even the scent of that couch prods at something in his childhood memories. And yet, he knows he’s never been in this house before. Not once. Not ever.

Weird. Beyond weird.

He considers mentioning it to El, but then she’s turning on the TV, flopping down on the carpet on her stomach and asking him what he wants to watch while they work, and he tries to brush the feeling aside. It’s not easy to ignore - especially when he flops down next to her and that one particular halfway-familiar scent clouds up around him, as if another person regularly occupies this section of carpet. It’s spicy-fresh, like pine or juniper, rich with warm undertones of something organic. Mike can’t name or place it, but it reminds him tangentially of sun-warmed skin, sunflowers, glossy comic pages, and warm, rumpled bed sheets just after sunrise when no one else is awake. It’s one of those striking and somehow sparkling scents with surprising depth; like the olfactory equivalent of champagne, dark chocolate, the spark of sunlight on the ocean, deep blue velvet, and the captivating resonance of the richest notes on his cello.

And he knows it. That’s the thing, he _knows_ this scent, he knows this person, and at the same time he doesn’t. It’s intimately familiar and completely new at the same time.

In the next fraction of a second, images burst and fade in his memory like fireworks, or lightning. They’re gone before he can truly comprehend them, dredged up from the depths of his brain by that oh-so-powerful association of smell, and then disappearing just as quickly. There was something about crayons. Coloring. They were coloring. They? Yes... there was someone else. A friend. 

_“Mikey, can I have the green?”_

The child’s voice drops into his mind like a pebble into a pond. One last scrap of memory, all wrapped up in certain notes of that scent. Then it’s over.

Belatedly, it hits him: it’s an Alpha’s scent. Unmistakably. And yet, he hadn’t even realized until now. Usually the barest hint of Alpha sends him crossing the street at a brusque clip, nose wrinkled, dreading an encounter. It’s not an unpleasant scent on its own, it’s just the _connotations_ that make him avoid it like the plague. And it can easily tilt into overbearing and overpowering, going sour with dominance. But this one doesn’t make him cringe.

He’s furious at himself for breathing in a little deeper, cheeks and ears and neck flushing hot when El casts him a curious glance.

Thankfully, it’s dissipating as fast as it surrounded him. He can still smell it, but he’s able to shake himself and yank open the zipper of his backpack, focusing. Studying. Here’s here to study. 

Surreptitiously, he swipes the inside of a wrist under his nose, leaving a nearly imperceptible film of oil behind. It absorbs and evaporates within seconds. There. Now all he can smell is himself. Problem solved.

El wants to watch _General Hospital._ It’s a soap opera, much too corny for Mike’s taste, but they’re not really paying attention to it anyway. It runs in the background while, slowly but surely, a ring of studious detritus begins to form around them. Notebooks, planners, flash cards, books, pillows.

Mike is running a hand through his hair, grinding his teeth over a concept that he just can’t cement in his brain, when he realizes that El has been making frustrated sounds.

“You okay?” he says, surfacing from his own frustration, and she pushes her backpack over with a disgusted huff.

“Can’t find the damn textbook,” she mutters, standing. “I just had it two days ago, where is it?”

Mike stands as well, taking the opportunity to stretch, and wanders after her. He doesn’t like the idea of being alone in the living room. He’s never been in this house before. It just feels awkward to be alone. So he follows El around a corner and up a flight of carpeted stairs, pausing to stare hard at yet another painting that he _knows_ he’s seen before. Beside it is a series of black and white photographs, framed. Birds in flight, telephone poles in a row, a bike overturned in the woods. He doesn’t recognize those. Maybe he only imagined recognizing the painting...

El, he realizes all at once, has disappeared. He can hear her bumping around somewhere above, but he has no idea which door she entered. He hurries after her, angles vaguely to the left where he thinks her footsteps are coming from, and sticks his head into the first open door.

And stops dead.

“I bet my brother has it,” she’s saying, rooting around recklessly in what is _clearly_ an Alpha’s den.

“El!” he hisses, hand jolting up to make a grab for her before thinking better of it, and she sends him a confused stare. Then her expression smooths with a gesture of dismissal.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she says, continuing to brazenly invade and upturn an Alpha’s personal space. “I’m in here all the time. Shit, it’s not here.”

She extracts herself from the redolent space, tripping over a stuffed lion, catching herself on Mike’s sleeve, and flitting off to another room as if she didn’t just do something unheard of. And potentially dangerous.

You don’t enter an Alpha’s den without an explicit invitation. You just don’t. Not unless you’re their mate and you know you’re always welcome. Not even if they’re family. 

Mike knows he should follow her, and maybe close the door so he can breathe a lungful of fresh air and think straight, but he can’t resist pausing and taking one last glance around. It’s a bedroom, and it’s absolutely saturated with that familiar-unfamiliar scent. He doesn’t want to, he swears he could care less about what this unknown Alpha smells like, but he takes another breath anyway. And another.

Many of the rooms in the Wheeler household feel a bit impersonal. Warm and comfortable, maybe, and certainly very well-balanced and well designed, but somehow hollow. Like the pages of a magazine; it feels more likely for a Barbie doll or TV personality to inhabit the space than actual human beings. You look at the Wheeler’s living room and it’s impossible to tell what kind of people live there, other than _moderately wealthy,_ _tidy,_ and _good taste in Venetian blinds._ But Mike can look around this room and nearly _feel_ the person that lives here. It’s cozy, and a little bit messy without feeling chaotic or slobbish, and, oh yeah, nerdy as hell. There’s a _Jaws_ poster, _Star Wars_ figurines lined up on the writing desk frozen in mid-battle, stacks of books in odd places, Christmas lights dark and lifeless strung along the walls and ceiling for reasons unknown. When they’re on, the space must feel like being inside a Christmas tree, like when Mike was little and he used to stick his head underneath the branches among the presents so he could gaze up through the winking layers of lights and baubles. A dart board bristles with darts beside the closet door, and a jar gleams on the windowsill, half-full of crumpled bills and silver coins. A piece of masking tape labels it as _savings._ A basket of unfolded laundry overflows with tee shirts, jeans, and towels. Books share the shelves with more jars, these ones crammed with well-loved art supplies of all types.

There’s an unmade bed and a large beanbag, and Mike can’t tell which one calls to him more powerfully. He just wants to dive into one or the other and curl up in the blankets that have so _clearly_ been scent-marked by the person that lives here, and go to sleep breathing in that fresh-spicy scent.

Mike is hit with a kind of painful absence-abundance all at once. It’s like when you’ve been so thirsty for so long that the first swallow of water hurts your throat. It’s too much, burning the parched tissues of your throat at first because they had been so dry. Or like being freezing cold, skin red and blotchy, and trying to climb into a warm bath. Mike stands at the doorway, swaying momentarily as he soaks up Alpha pheromones that for once aren’t pungent with aggression, aren’t a family member’s, aren’t overwhelming or distasteful. He forgets himself for a minute and breathes in, eyes closing.

“Um.”

He startles so violently that he nearly bites his own tongue off, whirling to see El standing in the hallway behind him, a battered textbook in her arms.

“Sorry,” he blurts, scrambling back through the doorway. Shit, he had taken a few steps into the room. When had he done that? He grins, sheepish. “Just curious.”

“Ugh,” she scoffs, wrinkling her nose as they both turn away from the den and start trooping down the stairs. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a thing for my _brother._ ”

“Ugh,” he echoes, and laughs. “Not a chance. Are you kidding me? You know I don’t like Alphas.”

They return to General Hospital, which is wrapping up by this point. Colorful, sugary advertisements begin to play, and Mike tries his best to focus back on his study. This test is _tomorrow,_ and he’s far from the best student in class. He needs to study or he’ll be screwed.

_Will always showed up to school early to study for tests,_ he remembers, surprised and confused at the unannounced thought. _Everyone always said he was a great student. All the adults loved him. Teacher’s pet._

The words are lined with a healthy dose of eye-rolling mixed with affection, and Mike stares unseeingly at the textbook El is highlighting even though they’re not supposed to write in their textbooks. Will. His childhood best friend. The boy Mike missed more than anything else about his old life after he presented, who Mike used to daydream about years ago. This is the second time this week that Will has stepped quietly into Mike’s thoughts. Why now? 

For a moment, several things flicker and mesh in Mike’s mind. The smell, the childhood memory, the tauntingly familiar furniture and decor, the _Jaws_ poster upstairs. Half a thought forms.

Before the thought can finish processing, a key scrapes in the front door. Voices, which Mike initially thought were coming from the TV, buzz from just outside.

Mike’s eyes meet El’s. Crap. They’re gonna have to move now, probably up to her room. Make themselves scarce and all that.

Mike has already started gathering his stuff, scooping it into his backpack, when the door opens and not one but _three_ figures enter.

“- utter fucking bull,” one voice is saying. It’s a guy’s voice, somewhere around Mike’s age, and like everything else in this bizarre house it’s almost familiar. “We pay - what? Five hundred dollars for the privilege of sitting in a waiting room while they fuss over some stupid rich lady with a head cold?”

The back of Mike’s neck is prickling. The timber of that voice, those inflections -

_“Mikey, can I have the green?”_

The three figures and a dog drift around the entryway, kicking off shoes and shrugging off jackets. One is a burly man, an Alpha by the demeanor and scent, that Mike only recognizes by reputation: Jim Hopper, the police chief. El’s dad. He’s supporting a woman with frizzy brown hair, who gently pulls away as Mike watches as if to say  _ I can stand on my own, thanks. _ She un-tethers the dog’s leash. It’s a white mutt going silver with age, and it trots immediately to Mike, sniffing at his hands and breathing dog breath in his face.

“Chess,” El says, pushing him away, but Mike is more focused on the last figure in the entryway.

On the woman’s other side, still fuming, is a brown-haired Alpha with a lean build and a flannel shirt unbuttoned over a tee shirt for some obscure rock band that Mike has never heard of. The second he gets the barest hint of a scent from across the room, his heart sinks and his stomach flips.

_ Oh, _ he thinks,  _ fuck. _

“Not five hundred,” the woman is saying, tiredly. “And we did get in there eventually -”

“For what? For them to tell us the exact same things we’ve heard before, list off more pills that don’t work and slap us with a bill that’s -”

“Will,” the older Alpha cuts in, gently but firmly, “These things take time. You’re asking for a miracle cure.”

“I’m asking them to  _ help  _ us!” Will yells, and Mike would flinch at that yell if he wasn’t so gobsmacked.

Then, all at once, all three of the new arrivals seem to pick up on something. They turn, one after another, and Mike finds himself the subject of three surprised, embarrassed and curious stares.

El, already on her feet, moves towards her step-mom. Chester, the dog Mike barely remembers from childhood, follows at her heels. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Joyce says, oh my God that’s _Joyce Byers_ from when Mike was little, she used to walk him and Will home from elementary school nearly every other day - “These two are making it sound more dramatic than it is.”

Joyce pulls El into a reassuring hug, but her eyes are fixed on Mike. Mike stands, self-conscious, and hovers awkwardly in the living room. He can’t bring himself to look slightly to her left, where he can sense another pair of startled and curious eyes. It can’t be. It can’t be. It’s been years, he thought they moved away -

El, noticing the direction of Joyce’s gaze, pulls away to say, “Oh, this is -”

“Mike?”

The single word draws Mike’s eyes, and, finally, he’s staring at the boy he hasn’t seen since they were kids.

Will is exactly the same, and entirely different. Same soft fringe of brown hair, but different haircut - gone is the bowl cut of their childhood years, replaced with something shorter, more mature, messier. Same two moles on his neck, same slender fingers constantly fidgeting with something - right now it’s the tie of his hoodie - same intriguing brown-green eyes, ever-shifting in exact hue and pattern depending on the light and surroundings and his emotions. But though he’s still slight in build, for an Alpha, he’s... well, an Alpha. Tall, slightly tanned, and strong despite his relatively narrow shoulders. The black tee shirt is new. The cheekbones are new - apparently there was a sharp and handsome face under the baby fat of days past. And the scent. That’s new.

Just not entirely.

Of course Mike didn’t recognize him by scent. He’s kicking himself now. Why didn’t he put that together? He only ever knew Will by his childhood scent, before either of them presented. Now that old, familiar smell has filled out and grown complex, all muddled up in Will’s mature scent. Pine, juniper, sun, paper, bed sheets. Deep and broad and sparkling.

He realizes with a jolt that he hasn’t responded, and full seconds have gone by. “Will,” he says, blank with surprise.

A smile lights up Will’s face, all his anger from before vanishing in a puff of smoke. The smile is startling in and of itself. There’s a strikingly genuine, spontaneous nature to it, almost childlike; a rare find in adult expressions. Especially adult Alphas, who are trained from Day One to school their expressions and channel all the “weaker” emotions into something hard and cutting, like anger.

“Mike,” he says again, sure this time, half-laughing with bewilderment. 

He realizes a second too late that the Alpha is moving towards him, a bounce in his step, and Mike freezes. Caught between two instincts. Half of him knows that Will is just going in for a hug, he always was a hugger when he was a kid, but the other half of him gives a painful lurch of _panic panic panic._ And Will must see that, he must notice the clipped little half-step that Mike took away from him, because his smile fades and he slows to a stop several feet away. His breath catches as he breathes in, something lighting up in his eyes, and Mike wonders fleetingly if his own scent is just as strange-familiar to Will as Will’s is to him.

There’s an awkward pause. Mike’s flinch jarred them both out of their initial shock, and now reality is settling in again. Yes, Mike is blindsided by this unexpected reunion. Yes, it’s been six years since they’ve seen each other, and yes, he missed Will a lot when he was younger. But he’s not younger anymore. They’re nearly adults now, getting ready to graduate high school, and they’ve both had a long time to make other friends and move on. They were friends as pups, after all. And Will isn’t the same person now that he was then. He’s an Alpha. His brain is structured differently now, his personality is different, everything is different. Whatever person that Will used to be, whoever it was that Mike used to long for in his first years in the Omega buildings, that person is long gone. The person standing in front of Mike now isn’t his best friend. Not anymore.

Mike swallows and dips his head in a nod of acknowledgement. “It’s good to see you again,” he says, all politeness and professionalism.

The happy sparkle in Will’s eyes dims as if someone threw a wet towel over it. Mike almost feels bad. He’s increasingly aware of all the witnesses to this conversation, and Will seems a little uncomfortable too. He glances at his sister, shifting his weight. 

“You too,” Will says. And then, carefully, he steps forward. 

Mike bristles, fighting the urge to glare suspiciously. He doubts Will would try anything in front of his family, but you can’t be too careful. He braces himself for an unsolicited hug or an uncomfortable kiss on the hand, invasiveness masquerading as chivalry. But when Will holds out his hand and Mike silently acquiesces, internally cringing, none of that happens. Instead Will just grips his hand, warming Mike’s chilled fingers with his own. The handshake was so unexpected that Mike royally fucks it up, forgetting to actually shake until Will is about to let go again, and his cheeks are hot with a whole new flush of embarrassment by the time Will steps away again.

Stupid brain. Stupid, stupid brain.

_He’s not your friend,_ Mike reminds himself sternly as Joyce steps into Will’s place and begins happily fussing over Mike, exclaiming over how tall he is and asking where he’s been and what he’s been doing. _He looks like Will, but he isn’t anymore. Don’t be an idiot._

But when he senses Will watching him out of the corner of his eye, Mike is an idiot anyway, and looks back. They exchange a small eye roll at Joyce’s motherly affection, and Will’s smile makes Mike smile.

And he decides right there that he hates Will Byers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would it be too punny if I said this was un-Beta-d?  
> ...  
> anyway let me know your thoughts lol


End file.
